Topical issues

ANALYSIS: Last year the UK Government reformed the National Referral Mechanism – the framework for identifying potential victims of modern slavery – in an effort to speed up decision making and police action against those accused of exploitation; but Research Assistant Ying Zhang and Professor Chee Yew Wong of the University of Leeds argue that the reforms have actually made the situation considerably worse for potential victims.

FEATURE: With elections taking place in the UK and a number of other countries in 2024, the volume and impact of digital disinformation looks likely to reach new levels – and policing is not immune from being targeted by those determined to drive division and hatred, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

FEATURE: An operation launched by Thames Valley Police to use in-house drug testing in possession with intent to supply cases has cut delays in bringing cases to court, improved outcomes and proved effective in taking dealers off the street, with other forces now looking to implement the same approach, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: In the latest in the new series of The Police Student focusing on Criminology in Policing, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly explores right realist perspectives, rational actors, and the development of a societal ‘underclass’.

ANALYSIS: Last month the Global Law Enforcement & Public Health Association (GLEPHA) published a series of reports as part of the ‘Envisaging the future of policing and public health’ project, covering a range of topics including violence prevention, diversion, and policing mental health; in the third in a series of seven articles, Policing Insight’s Thomas James looks at GLEPHA’s report on working with marginalised communities within Mozambique, Australia and Liberia.

OPINION: Last month’s Annual Youth Justice Statistics for 2022-23 showed fewer children sentenced or cautioned, improvements in disproportionality, and the lowest number of children in custody, but more children being stopped and searched and arrested, including those entering the criminal justice system for the first time; Keith Fraser, Youth Justice Board Chair and Board Champion for Over-Represented Children believes that while there are “rays of optimism” in the figures, much more need to be done to embed change.

FEATURE: Speaking at a recent Police Foundation event, Mark Evans – Executive Lead for Future Policing at New Zealand Police – explained how forces can build effective partnerships and take steps to improve trust and confidence, the benefits of listening to ‘angry friends’, and what senior officers must do to change the organisations they lead, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

OPINION: Social media platforms are flooded with millions of posts every minute, and artificial intelligence (AI) can play a crucial role in monitoring harmful content; Professor Stuart Macdonald, Postdoctoral Researcher Ashley Mattheis and Honorary Research Associate David Wells of Swansea University’s Cyber Threats Research Centre look at the potential and the pitfalls of using AI to identify terrorist content online.

INNOVATION: Cybercrime is a challenge for all businesses, but it’s an especially complex one for smaller companies to take on; in an exclusive interview with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, Ian Hickling and Jonathan Green explain how free Home Office-funded tool Police CyberAlarm might form part of the answer – and help police to develop the “actionable intelligence” needed to deal with online threats.

FEATURE: Recent surveys of NHS staff have highlighted increased levels of violence and abuse towards those working in healthcare, prompting concerns over staff wellbeing as well as recruitment and retention issues; former Ottawa Police Service Chief Vernon White looks at the scale of the problem, it’s wider impact for emergency services, and what steps organisations should take to address the issue.

INTERVIEW: In the second half of an exclusive two-part interview with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, Temporary Assistant Commissioner Nik Adams – the City of London Police lead for fraud and cybercrime – explored the policing response to offences which now constitute nearly 50% of all crime in England and Wales, including the launch of the Government’s National Fraud Strategy and a £150million overhaul of Action Fraud.

FEATURE: The conflict between Israel and Hamas has seen huge increases in hate crimes (both Islamophobia and antisemitism) around the world; but the sharp rise in antisemitic attacks reflects a trend that predates the current crisis in Gaza, prompting the launch of an EU strategy on targeting antisemitism and a call for police and others to collaborate on protecting Jewish places of worship, schools, and community gatherings, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

FEATURE: Speaking at the Canterbury Centre for Policing Research’s annual conference, Dr Emma Williams – Director of the Open University’s the Centre for Policing Research and an academic with years of experience exploring the police approach to rape cases – gave her overview of why reform in this area is so difficult to get right, and her hopes that Operation Soteria could provide the path to progress, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

OPINION: A recent Policing Insight article highlighted significant differences in the response to domestic violence disclosure applications in England and Wales; but Allan Dorans MP, the Scottish National Party’s spokesperson on policing at Westminster and a former Detective Inspector with the Metropolitan Police, believes a similar disclosure scheme in Scotland has been much more successful, as have wider efforts to reduce violent crime north of the border.

INTERVIEW: Following the recent publication of the National Police Chiefs’ Council Covenant for Using Artificial Intelligence in Policing, Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to Dylan Alldridge, Head of Innovation at the Office of the Policing Chief Scientific Adviser, about the importance of the Covenant, and how AI is likely to be transformative for law enforcement in the future.

INTERVIEW: In an exclusive two-part interview with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, City of London Police Temporary Assistant Commissioner Nik Adams explains how artificial intelligence will transform fraud and cybercrime, what Action Fraud’s new replacement will do to improve the response to victims, and why calls for a single national force to tackle fraud are a major mistake.

NEW REPORT: Information management is a crucial part of policing, yet too often it is regarded as a low priority by forces; now a new report from Policing Insight highlights the risks of underestimating the vital role the function plays, the challenges in changing culture and technology, and the opportunities of leveraging significant policing outcomes from well-managed data, as James Sweetland explains.

ANALYSIS: Last month the Global Law Enforcement & Public Health Association (GLEPHA) published a series of reports as part of the ‘Envisaging the future of policing and public health’ project, covering a range of topics including violence prevention, mental health, and policing marginalised communities; in the second in a series of seven articles, Policing Insight’s Thomas James looks at GLEPHA’s report on harm reduction programmes and policing partnerships in countries from Kenya and Kyrgyzstan to Scotland and South Africa.

FEATURE: Following a string of scandals and tough inspection reports, there have been near-constant demands for policing in England and Wales to reform; at the recent Canterbury Centre for Policing Research annual conference, three academics presented their blueprints for making change a reality – from new powers to intervene in failing forces, to adopting UN standards, and creating a new ‘police reserve’ – as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

INTERVIEW: After 41 years in policing – the past four as Commissioner of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force – Trevor Botting retired recently, although admits he may have not hung up his uniform altogether; he spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the challenges leading an island force in the West Indies, the need to nurture local recruits, and why the force’s firearms officers are among the bravest he has worked with.

INTERVIEW: Police personnel and their families continue to be at risk from online hate and harmful threats; Professor Petra Bayerl from the Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence & Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC), explained to Policing Insight how a ground-breaking project with six police forces is seeking to better understand the challenges, risks and harms police officers and their families face when online.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The all-too-common challenge of working within a modern policing environment: mountains of data from databases are disconnected and siloed. Users have to search through dozens of systems and conduct disconnected crime analysis, manually uncovering key linkages between entities. At the vanguard of policing technology, a growing graph-structured data model called a knowledge graph is proving invaluable.

FEATURE: Initial findings from the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue investigation into activism and impartiality, revealed in an interim update from HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke, highlight striking concerns about politicisation, with most senior officers saying they’ve experienced “improper pressure or interference from significant political figures”, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

OPINION: This month saw the launch of a new UK Code of Ethics by the College of Policing; but former officer and now author and University of Central Lancashire Policing Lecturer Derek Flint believes the revised code is so lengthy and wide ranging that the core messages may well be lost, while also providing barristers or IOPC investigators with a means by which to trip up staff and officers who are trying their level best.